Bakewell, John, a Wesleyan lay preacher,
was born at Brailsford, in Derbyshire, in
1721. He was a man of piety, earnestness,
and consecration. He was made a lay
preacher in 1749, and proved to be one of
Mr. Wesley's
most efficient workers. He
was for several years Master of the Greenwich
Royal Park Academy. It was in his
house that
Thomas Olivers
wrote his justly
famous and much-admired hymn, "The
God of Abraham praise." He was an eminently
useful man, and lived to a ripe old
age, being ninety-eight years old when he
died, in 1819. He was buried in City Road
Chapel not far from the tomb of John Wesley.
The epitaph upon his tombstone states
that "he adorned the doctrines of God our
Saviour eighty years, and preached his
glorious gospel about seventy years." He
composed many hymns "which remain in
the manuscript beautifully written," but
only one finds a place in modern Church hymnals:
| Hail, thou once despised Jesus |
171 |
This book has been accessed more than 246613 times since June 1, 2005.
